rp@xn.ll.mit.edu (Richard Pavelle) (03/14/90)
I trust all of you readers can keep a secret: My 15 year old son told
me that he and his friends can place calls from pay phones using a
paper clip instead of coins. In addition they can place long-distance
calls the same way instead of using calling cards. I did not believe
the claim until I saw the kids in action. They use the paper clip to
complete a circuit and it requires about five seconds.
Now I ask you readers how can this be? Is telephone technology so poor
that a simple paper clip can allow one to dial around the world?
P.S. I took away his paper clips and scolded him!!!!!!!!!!
Richard Pavelle UUCP: ...ll-xn!rp
ARPANET: rp@XN.LL.MIT.EDU
[Moderator's Note: Describe the payphone. Is this the older type where
you put the money in and then get a dial tone, typically without an
armored handset cable? On those older-style payphones, yes, you could
use a safety-pin or similar to momentarily connect the tip to ground
(same as what happened when the coin hit a little 'seesaw' on the
inside of the box which briefly touched two wires together). When I
was ten years old, sometime around 1950, we always made free payphone
calls. The handset cords were made of straight (not curled) cloth, the
phone had three slots on the top for 5/10/25 cent coins, and the coin
return did not have a trap door as now. We were quite proficient at
getting a stiff wire up that return slot and tripping the collection
table in our favor before the operator could get to it and trip it the
other way, collecting the coins. PT]George Pell <georgep@vice.ico.tek.com> (03/16/90)
In article <5130@accuvax.nwu.edu> rp@xn.ll.mit.edu (Richard Pavelle) writes:
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 169, Message 10 of 10
+I trust all of you readers can keep a secret: My 15 year old son told
+me that he and his friends can place calls from pay phones using a
+paper clip instead of coins. In addition they can place long-distance
+calls the same way instead of using calling cards. I did not believe
+the claim until I saw the kids in action. They use the paper clip to
+complete a circuit and it requires about five seconds.
+Now I ask you readers how can this be? Is telephone technology so poor
+that a simple paper clip can allow one to dial around the world?
When I was 15 (quite a few years ago) with the older style pay phones
like the moderator described in his followup, we used to make calls
using a coke cup cut into a strip the width of a dime, inserting it
into the dime slot (calls were a dime), and dropping pennies into the
quarter slot. You may have had to bang the coin return at the same
time, but I don't remember now.
geoAmitabh Shah <shah@cs.cornell.edu> (03/17/90)
In article <5130@accuvax.nwu.edu> rp@xn.ll.mit.edu (Richard Pavelle) writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 169, Message 10 of 10 > I trust all of you readers can keep a secret: My 15 year old son told > me that he and his friends can place calls from pay phones using a > paper clip instead of coins. In addition they can place long-distance > calls the same way instead of using calling cards. I did not believe > the claim until I saw the kids in action. They use the paper clip to > complete a circuit and it requires about five seconds. > Now I ask you readers how can this be? Is telephone technology so poor > that a simple paper clip can allow one to dial around the world? I have done similar things in my childhood too ;-). The public phones in India (at least in Bombay, where I lived) were designed so that one made a call and only after hearing the called party come on line, you put in the coins. We used to do two things: 1. On some sets, it was possible to communicate using ONLY THE EARPIECE, not the mouthpiece, without using any coins. So you first instruct your mom to speak slowly, and not immediately. Then you alternate between hearing thru' the earpiece, and then speaking thru' it. It really worked. It was easy to get caught doing this, and I was indeed caught once by our school principal's wife. 2. Some very old Indian coins were doughnut-shaped (well, flat doughnuts) - with a hole in the middle. If you had such a coin, then you could tie a string to it and drop it in to complete the connection. Pull it out later when you're done. Ah, those were the days!! Amitabh Shah shah@cs.cornell.edu--(INTERNET) Dept. of Computer Science { ... }!cornell!shah-----(UUCP) Upson Hall -- Cornell University (607) 255-8597---------(OFFICE) Ithaca NY 14853-7501 (607) 257-7717-----------(HOME)
Tom Talpey <tmt@osf.org> (03/19/90)
> I trust all of you readers can keep a secret: My 15 year old son told > me that he and his friends can place calls from pay phones using a > paper clip instead of coins. In addition they can place long-distance > calls the same way instead of using calling cards. I did not believe > the claim until I saw the kids in action. They use the paper clip to > complete a circuit and it requires about five seconds. Circa 1970 with pay phones in Rochester, NY, this was possible. By placing a thumbtack in the dial's fingerhook, a completed circuit with the metal cage of the mouthpiece would nicely obtain a dialtone. In retrospect I assume this would be a loop or ground start, depending on the phone's configuration. What was interesting about it was that, as observed, the phone was completely unrestricted at this point. Where I went to school, it was common to find thumbtacks up behind the coin slots. Not that _I_ ever used them for such purposes. Tom Talpey tmt@osf.org
piet@cs.ruu.nl (Piet van Oostrum) (03/21/90)
`> I trust all of you readers can keep a secret: My 15 year old son told `> me that he and his friends can place calls from pay phones using a `> paper clip instead of coins. In addition they can place long-distance `> calls the same way instead of using calling cards. I did not believe `> the claim until I saw the kids in action. They use the paper clip to `> complete a circuit and it requires about five seconds. In the Netherlands, telephone billing is, as in most European countries ``click-based''. You can have a counter at home to see how many clicks you have used. The telephone company then sends a puls over your line for each click. This pulse is between one of the signal wires and ground. This pulse is also used for payphones, to deduct the money from your deposit (on older payphones the click would cause the phone to swallow one coin). Some people found out a few years ago that you could disable the counting by grounding the microphone (just opening the moutpiece). Apparently the phone company changed all pay phones when they found out. Piet* van Oostrum, Dept of Computer Science, Utrecht University, Padualaan 14, P.O. Box 80.089, 3508 TB Utrecht, The Netherlands. Telephone: +31-30-531806 Uucp: uunet!mcsun!ruuinf!piet Telefax: +31-30-513791 Internet: piet@cs.ruu.nl (*`Pete')
lyman@uunet.uu.net (Michael Lyman) (03/22/90)
tmt@osf.org (Tom Talpey) writes: >> I trust all of you readers can keep a secret: My 15 year old son told >> me that he and his friends can place calls from pay phones using a >> paper clip instead of coins. In addition they can place long-distance >> calls the same way instead of using calling cards. I did not believe >> the claim until I saw the kids in action. They use the paper clip to >> complete a circuit and it requires about five seconds. Back in the "olden days" a cassette recorder and a payphone was all that was required for long distance chicanery ( plus a pocket full of spare change ). It was a simple scheme: deposit a dime, or any coin that would render dialtone (for kicks the method above was also used ), dial a digit thus getting rid of the dial tone. Now it got technical .... the cassette recorder microphone was held against the earpiece and while the recorder ran, coins (usually dimes or quarters ) were slowly but methodically deposited into the phone, recording the "ding-ding" as the coins dropped. When all the coins were deposited, the payphone was hung up. There was a time-out associated with the no-dial condition so the perpetrator had to be careful not to exceed this timeout, and above all, the whole operation had to be *quiet* in order to make a quality recording. The stage was now set! Someone would dial "0" and ask the operator to place a long distance call. The operator would ask to deposit $XX in coins for the first three minutes. At this point the recorder (which has been requeued to the begining) was held up to the telephone mouthpiece and the sound of the coins dropping was played back for the operator. When the required amount of $XX was reached, the recorder was stopped and the operator said "thenk-yew" and three minutes of conversation usually to a random number took place. I'm still not sure if it was the operator that had to listen for the chimes that the coins made or the recorder faked out some on-line equipment, but it was Iowa, it was the '60's and it provided no end of paranoia to the little burr-heads on the block that the phone police might one day be calling. Just another story.... -M.L. [Moderator's Note: In those days, the only way for the operator to verify your deposit was to listen for the 'ding' of the nickle, the 'ding-ding' of the dime, and the 'bong' of the quarter, as each went down the chute and caused a little metal arm inside to hit the bell. We also found in the early days of ESS that pressing the three and six keys at the same time created a pitch that 'sounded like a nickle' to the operator when a manual collection was required (usually when for some reason the equipment failed to capture the number being called and the operator had to bubble it in herself.) PT]